EXCLUSIVE: Teen tells of final moments before fatal Jacksonville crash

Paul Pinkham

Friday

Aug 28, 2009 at 1:00 AM

Brandon Hodges wears the sad eyes of a survivor who watched four of his friends die.

At 15, he's experienced emotions beyond his years after a fatal crash on Interstate 295 in Jacksonville on the last day of school.

Shock. Grief. Depression. Even gratitude for support he's received from unlikely sources.

Hodges, too young for a driver's license, was behind the wheel of his girlfriend's family's 1997 Ford Explorer when a tire blew, causing the vehicle to roll near Pritchard Road.

Eight teenagers, most from Ed White High School, were ejected. Four died. Four were seriously injured.

Hodges, the only one wearing a seat belt and the only one not ejected, was charged this week with driving without a license causing death, driving without a license causing injury and careless driving.

In an exclusive interview Thursday, Hodges told The Times-Union about the teens' planned trip to Hanna Park that day, how he ended up driving and what he remembers about the accident.

"I was blacking out, but at the same time I was trying to focus. There was so much adrenaline," he said during an hour-long interview at his lawyer's office. "All I heard was people screaming."

Hodges said the beach trip had been planned about two months. None of the kids had finals or make-up work left to do, so June 5 was more like the first day of summer than the last day of school.

Even so, his stepfather initially refused to let him go until Hodges and a friend's mother finally convinced him. Carl Hilliard, who's raised Hodges since he was 4, said the boy begged him every day for a week.

Hodges said the teens met at Ed White that morning, and he recalled asking the others if they had permission to go. There were 19 kids in all, enough for three carloads, but nine of them piled into the Explorer - two in the front seat, four in the back seat and three in the cargo area.

When Rebecca Pilkington, Hodges' girlfriend at the time, asked him to drive because she was tired, he said he didn't think twice. He said he and his stepfather had been practicing driving on back roads for about a year.

Nobody else questioned the decision either, Hodges said.

After a few stops for gas and junk food, Hodges said they headed for the beach. As he drove up the Interstate 10 entrance ramp in Marietta, something told him to put on his seat belt, he said.

"My stomach didn't feel right," he said.

Hodges was driving the rear vehicle in the caravan. Shortly after they got on I-295 north, the lead two cars got in the left lane and slowed to wait for the Explorer. Hodges pulled in behind them, driving carefully, he said, because he didn't want a ticket for underage driving.

All of a sudden, he said, he remembers the Explorer pulling to the right "real hard" and turning sideways across the interstate. According to the Florida Highway Patrol, the left rear tire tread had separated, causing the vehicle to spin out of control.

"There's no question here, Brandon made a mistake in driving without a license. The question is did he make a mistake in his driving. And from all we've been able to learn ... the answer is no," said Hodges' attorney, Duke Fagan. "Brandon has no responsibility for that tire blowing. None."

Hodges said he hit the brakes and managed to swing the Explorer back to the left briefly before the vehicle drifted into soft grass off the right emergency lane and rolled 360 degrees. Hodges said he blacked out.

When he came to, he was the only one in the vehicle. His door was jammed so he climbed out the passenger window. That's when he saw the carnage.

'I saw my friends laying on the ground'

"When I saw my friends laying on the ground, I got back up and ran to see if they were OK," he said. They weren't.

He ran to Pilkington first. He said she was unconscious but moving. Next to her was Kimber Krebs, 15. She wasn't moving. She died later at the hospital.

Also dead or dying were John Kiely and Erin Hurst, both 15, and Dennis Stout, 17. Seriously injured were Timothy Adam, Shannon Broome and Jimmy Gracia, all 15, and Pilkington, now 17.

Hodges recalled a highway patrolman helping him to his car, telling him to calm down. As he sat shaking and crying on the cruiser's hood, he threw up.

The following weeks are a blur, the summer that began with so much excitement punctuated instead by funerals, memorials, an arrest and overwhelming grief.

He recalled attending Krebs' funeral and hearing her mother say, "get him away from me" when he tried to approach her. He said that makes her support now that much more meaningful. Bobbie Krebs, who recently had a stroke, got out of her hospital bed this week to tell a juvenile court judge he's not to blame.

Hodges said she promised him she would be at every hearing to support him. Most of the other victims' families have supported him as well.

Hodges is undergoing counseling and will start classes Monday at Baldwin High, a week late as decided mutually by his family and the school. He won't play football this year but will help with the team.

The move to Baldwin is unrelated to the accident and was necessitated when the family's landlord went into foreclosure.

Hilliard said the accident has changed his once outgoing stepson. Where once he helped his stepfather coach peewee football and Little League baseball, now "he stays in his room all the time," Hilliard said.

"He'd just rather be alone, I think ... He's not really mentally the same kid," Hilliard said. "Don't get me wrong. He's still a great kid. I love him to death. It's just he's probably got a lot going on up there."

paul.pinkham@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4107

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